Even Syrian Rebels 'Armed To The Teeth' Won't Defeat Assad: Russia

Russia has warned Western and Arab nations against arming the
Syrian rebels, saying it would only make the situation worse.

"It is clear as day that even if the opposition is armed to the
teeth, it will not defeat the Syrian army, and there will simply
be slaughter and mutual destruction for long, long years,"
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, according to
RT.

Lavrov added the Friends of Syria group of Western and Arab
nations was undermining Kofi Annan's efforts to end the crisis.
He emphasized that Annan’s path was the only way forward, as
Friends of Syria, which the Kremlin has refused to join, was
biased towards the rebels,
Reuters reports. A UN recon team is due in Syria in 48 hours
to monitor the implementation of Annan’s plan.

While Syrian President Bashar Assad has agreed to Annan’s plan of
a ceasefire from April 10, there are reports that he is not
keeping his word. "From the Turkish border in the northeast to
Deraa in the south, the military operations continue," Rami Abdel
Rahman, president of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights,
told Syrian paper
al-Bawaba. The UN estimates 9,000 have been killed in the
last year.

Neither the U.S. nor most Arab countries believe Assad will end
the fighting. The Gulf states have gone a step further and
decided to pay the “salaries” of the rebels, the Free Syrian Army
(FSA), the first formal international support for the rebels,
the
BBC reports.